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58th Anniversary of the First J.P. Patches Show

On Monday, February 10th, 1958 at 10 o’clock in the morning, The J.P. Patches Show went on the air on KIRO-TV as their first live broadcast. Today marks the 58th anniversary of that first show which continued to run for 23 years and at one time had an viewership of over 100,000. When it left the air in 1981, it was the longest running, locally produced children’s program in the country.

In addition to topping the ratings for local children’s programming, the J.P. Patches Show won numerous Emmy awards over the years including:

Best Children’s Program

Best Performer

Best Personality

Best Audio Production (thanks to Duane Smart)

It’s been 35 years since he went off the airwaves, but J.P. Patches has continued to live on as Seattle’s favorite clown in our hearts and memories. Thank you, Chris Wedes. Thank you, Bob Newman. And thank you to all of the other talented individuals who made this show possible.

Here’s a short video from KIRO featuring a segment from the very first show. Don’t adjust your sets… the video is silent.

Credit Where Credit is Due

The content on these pages was lifted... plagiarized... er... forged... um... inspired by the J.P. Patches Multimedia History first published on the J. P. Patches Desktop Set for Windows CD-ROM by Attic Studios and the fascinating book J.P. Patches Northwest Icon by Julius Pierpont Patches & Bryan Johnston. Some content written by Bob Alexander and embellished by Curt Hanks.